This paper is an attempt to discuss Yeats’s ultimate reality. Yeats’s Unity ofBeing can be said to be similar to the system of Upanishad’s AUM because AUMis the combination of Brahman and Atman. Upanishad’s ascetic realized that Atman,reaching to a state of Turiya, can be Brahman. Subject and object, Atman andBrahman, dancer and dance, and the Four Principles and the Four Faculties alsobecome one in Turiya. As we would identify Atman with our self, Brahman is ourself-consciousness. Moreover, if we would identify Atman with our body, Brahmanbecome a cosmos that reveals itself.
Yeats understood the Self, the ultimate reality, through Upanishad. Hismacrocosm was made up of Husk, Passionate Body, Spirit, and Celestial Body andhis microcosm was made of Will, Mask, Creative mind, and Body of Fate. In AVision, the Four Principles, which consists of Husk, Passionate Body, Spirit, andCelestial Body affected individually and complementarily the Four Faculties whichconsists of Will, Mask, Creative mind, and Body of Fate. Spirit and Celestial Bodyare mind and its object, while Husk and Passionate Body are sense and the objectof sense. Will and Mask are will and its object, while Creative Mind and Body ofFate are thought and its object. The whole system is based upon the belief that theSelf falls in human consciousness.
Robartes, from self-contained energy of contemplation, encompassed cyclicsystem in “The Double Vision of Michael Robartes”. He strayed away from thephysical world, found his way into the supernatural world, and returned to thephysical world again. Robartes's first vision is the state of total objectivity in whichno human life exists. It is identical with U of Upanishad and Mask of the FourFaculties. And his second vision is, then, the state of total subjectivity, Sushupti, which unifies subject and thought, object and idea. It is the same as M ofUpanishad and Creative Mind of the Four Faculties. However, he momentarilyreaches eternity, Turiya, through the multiple contemplation. It is AUM ofUpanishad and Body of Fate of the Four Faculties. In Turiya, Brahman and Atman,Buddha and Sphinx, dancer and Helen are integrated into one and accomplish theultimate reality as a phaseless sphere.
In conclusion, Yeats showed Unity of Being in “The Double Vision of MichaelRobartes”. His Unity of Being is a kind of Turiya of Upanishad. He attains theUltimate Reality completely, in which subject and object, macrocosm andmicrocosm, Brahman and Atman, the Four Principles and the Four Faculties areunified in the space without the time. He achieves the ultimate reality as an eternalinstant. This ultimate reality is Yeats’s Unity of Being.